Japan's New Leader Faces Energy

Home , Naoto Kan, Yoshihiko Noda

NEWS IN FOCUS GENETICS Halfway mark PHYSICS Rare-isotope facility SPACE SCIENCE Duo of probes NEUROSCIENCE Brain scans for 1,001 Arabidopsis gets a boost from hard set to dance through lunar challenge the concept of genome project p.14 times p.15 gravity p.16 free will p.23

keep the lights on in its absence. “We have no energy policy,” says Tat- suo Oyama, who studies investment in power

H. YAMAGUCHI/CORBIS utilities at the National Graduate Institute for FUKUSHIMACISIS Policy Studies in Tokyo. WWW.NATURE. “It’s a serious issue that COM/JAPANQUAKE Noda has to deal with.” Last year, Japan committed to constructing 14 new reactors so that nuclear power would provide half of the country’s electricity by 2030. But after the accident at Fukushima, public mistrust of the technology prompted Kan to ditch the plan. He also ordered existing reactors to be taken offline for a series of stress tests, in addition to normal inspections. All but one of the country’s 54 existing reactors are set to be shut down by May 2012, removing a quarter of Japan’s power capacity. Restarting them would require approval from local governments, which they may be reluctant to grant. Kan had promised that renewables and effi- ciency measures would make up the shortfall, but did not explicitly say how. “He made a change but he did it without debate and without a road map,” says Tsutomo Toichi, an energy specialist at the Japanese Institute of Energy Yoshihiko Noda is Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years, replacing Naoto Kan after his resignation. Economics in Tokyo. “It was very abrupt.” The short-term consequence has been a ENERGY jump in the use of fossil fuels, including an estimated 20% increase in imports of expen- sive liquefied natural gas. Toichi says that there could be a 20% increase in the cost of Japan’s new leader producing electricity in 2012 if nuclear reactors are shut down as expected, probably leading to higher rates for consumers. This week, the Tokyo Electric Power Company faces energy gap announced that it is considering a 10% hike in next year’s electricity rate. Citizens’ will- ingness to economize has trimmed power Power policy remains in flux. demand in Japan, but Oyama believes that the sagging economy has also reduced electricity BY DAVID CYRANOSKI IN TOKYO Noda must also contend with the threat of a consumption. Hiromasa Yonekura — chair- complete vacuum where the country’s energy man of Sumitomo Chemical, headquartered oshihiko Noda, Japan’s new prime policy should be. in Tokyo and Osaka, and head of the powerful minister, has a daunting in-tray to After the Fukushima disaster, Kan vowed to Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) — has deal with: a faltering economy, a huge “leave nuclear energy behind”, but made no clear repeatedly warned that high prices could force Yreconstruction effort following the devastat- plans to fill the energy gap. And neither Noda companies to move operations overseas. ing earthquake and tsunami in March, and an nor the other leadership contenders articulated To prevent this, Toichi says that the new ongoing nuclear emergency at the Fukushima a clear position on energy during the brief elec- government must get the nuclear plants back Daiichi power plant. Elected on 29 August tion campaign. When pressed on the issue, online as soon as possible. Despite public after Naoto Kan’s resignation last week as they steered clear of strong statements about opposition, Noda has hinted that nuclear will leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, the future of nuclear power or how they would continue to make up part of Japan’s energy

mix, and industry minister Banri Kaieda announced for the first time this week that he expects some reactors to restart this year. D. WEIGEL That would be a step in the wrong direc- tion, says Tetsunari Iida, director of the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, who wants the country to seize the opportunity to invest in renewable energy. On 12 September, Iida will launch the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation, which is backed by ¥1 billion (US$13 million) from Japan’s richest man, telecoms mogul Masayoshi Son. The foundation will bring together some 100 experts from around the world to analyse obstacles to implementing Variation among Arabidopsis strains can reflect genetic adaptation to their local habitat. renewable energy, and offer policy recom- mendations to the new government. GENOMICS The foundation’s cause did get a boost from Kan, who had agreed to step down only if Japan’s parliament passed a bill to support clean energy. The bill, which passed Halfway point for on 26 August, will next year guarantee a minimum price for wind, solar and other renewable energies that will make them 1,001 genomes quest more attractive for suppliers to invest in. Iida is confident that this will help to sustain the shift away from conventional Plant researchers map diversity of Arabidopsis thaliana. power sources. He notes that, from 2008 to 2010, Japan’s annual increase in solar-power BY HEIDI LEDFORD breed them into crops — to allow them to move capacity jumped from 230 megawatts to into a new environment or continue to succeed almost 1 gigawatt, giving the country a total oseph Ecker’s teenage son listened intently as where they face climate change,” Ecker says. capacity of 3.6 gigawatts. He believes that his father told him about the 1000 Genomes The mining of natural variation for genetic the renewables bill will make huge solar JProject, which aims to sequence and com- information has gained momentum as faster farms economically attractive for the first pare the genomes of 1,000 people. Ecker, a DNA sequencing has delivered multiple time. “I think next year we’ll see a tenfold molecular geneticist, explained that he and his genomes from wild populations. Similar pro- jump in solar and fivefold in wind,” he pre- colleagues were launching a similar project for jects are under way in mice, fruitflies, rice dicts. Many say that this is unrealistic. “It’s the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. “My son said, and, of course, humans. “If you go into nature, impossible within two years, and too ambi- ‘Well then you should sequence 1,001’,” Ecker you find all these fascinating mutations that tious within ten,” says Toichi. recalls. “He’s a very competitive kid.” have survived the sieve of natural selection,” A bill on global warming could also boost And so the Arabidopsis ‘1001 Genome Project’ says geneticist Trudy Mackay of North Caro- renewables by preventing Japan from filling was born. More than four years later, a loose lina State University in Raleigh, who leads the its energy gap with confederation of laboratories is on the verge of work in fruitflies. “But in the past we’ve been “There is now a fossil fuels. But the making that challenge a reality. Papers published hampered in our ability to tease them apart.” broad consensus bill’s prospects are online in Nature1 and Nature Genetics2 this week The 1001 Genome Project has had some that we need dim, even though report the sequencing of nearly 100 A. thaliana problems, however. Unable to get funding for a to reduce our its aim — a legally genomes, the first swathe released by the pro- single project, participating labs went their own reliance on binding target ject; around 400 more have been sequenced, ways, getting grants from a variety of sources, nuclear power.” to reduce green- but are not yet ready for publication. Last week, says Detlef Weigel, a plant biologist at the Max house-gas emis- Ecker’s group at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in sions to 25% below 1990 levels — was once California, won a US$2-million grant from the Tübingen, Germany, who has spearheaded the a cornerstone of the Democratic Party’s National Science Foundation (NSF) to polish off project. The result was a fragmented effort, with manifesto. “Because of the reduction in our another 500 strains, and to catalogue expressed each group sequencing strains and using tech- reliance on nuclear power, it will be very RNAs and map DNA methylation, a chemical niques that best fitted its own research. difficult” to hit that target, says Toichi. modification that affects gene expression. And Ecker frets that this ad hoc coalition Japan’s parliament has so far declined to Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress, is a small won’t even have a central place to deposit consider the bill, and political support for it weed with a simple genome that stands in as a and organize its data. Arabidopsis research- is waning rapidly. “The new majority posi- genetic reference for plants with more complex ers have relied on The Arabidopsis Informa- tion [within the Democratic Party] is to get genomes. The genome project aims to uncover tion Resource (TAIR), but NSF funding for rid of the 25% target,” says Iida. genetic changes that enable plants to adapt to that project is being phased out and its fate is Yet despite the uncertainties that now their local environments. There are thousands unclear. “We don’t want to have these data scat- cloud Japan’s future, Kan’s administration of strains of A. thaliana in stocks worldwide, tered all over the place,” says Ecker, “but there did at least deliver one clear achievement each of which might carry unique traits that may be nowhere to put them.” ■ on energy policy, says Iida. “There is now helped it to thrive in its natural environment 1. Gan, X. et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ a broad consensus that we need to reduce — tolerance for drought, perhaps, or defences nature10414 (2011). our reliance on nuclear power. That is the against viral pathogens. “If you learn which 2. Cao, J. et al. Nature Genet. http://dx.doi. atmosphere now.” ■ genes are important for these traits, you could org/10.1038/ng.911 (2011).